Old Friendships
by RaphaelplusMikey
Summary: Nobody really knows Gajeel. Not even Juvia, despite how close they are. An "old friend" of his shows up, someone who seems too weird and crazy even for Fairy Tail! One who's magic is pretty much useless, but she is still deadly with or without it. Gajeel's past is brought to the present, with secrets and shocking revelations around every corner! And wait, she's Gajeel's WHAT!
1. A Mystery In and Of Itself

**Old Friendships**

**Chapter One**

**A Mystery In and Of Itself**

**Me: Hey there peoples! RpM here, with my first Fairy Tail story! As I'm posting this story, I'm also going to be posting my second Fairy Tail story so that I can compare the two and see what people think. :) As you might notice, I'm going to be making an effort to actually NAME my chapters in these stories! :D**

**Ok, this story was inspired by another story I'm writing that is not a fanfiction, if my story was actually real I would be posting this as a crossover. As it is not, I can instead post this and put it as a normal story! I will put a warning in now, this story will eventually contain Yaoi. Not anything even worthy of Teen though, maybe a few kisses at most. Partly because I know nada on romance, partly because the two people aren't very open when they show their feelings. Woops, did I say that out loud? *whistles innocently***

**Mira: Ooooh! I can't wait until that part comes in! *squealing with hearts in her eyes***

**Me: Be strong Mira-chan, that will be a LONG way in the future.**

**Mara: *pouting* But... My OTP... *sniffs***

**Me: I TOTALLY agree with you. *crying***

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Fairy Tail or anything associated with it. The only things that I own are this storyline, my OCs, and any theories and ideas that are not mentioned in the manga or anime.**

**(By the way, does anyone know what OTP stands for? I know what it means, just not what it stands for. First person to let me know gets a hint to the future pairings and gets to decide ONE pairing for themselves, not including the characters I've already chosen. :D)**

* * *

Gajeel's P.o.V.

It was a normal day at Fairy Tail. That is, a ginormous mess. Phantom Lord was never this insane!

It was barely eleven o'clock in the morning, and there'd already been a fight that left one person with a broken wrist and one table and two chairs reduced to splinters. That wasn't to say that I hadn't joined in...

It was still insane. But then again, as someone I used to know always said: "There's no such thing as insane, only insanely fun." That saying actually perfectly described Fairy Tail... _/Maybe I should engrave it on a plaque./_

Natsu's team of idiots was lazing around, trying to ignore the Flamebrained idiot himself. He kept pestering them to go out on a job, when they'd only just finished one a short time ago. Short time as in they'd only gotten back at four o'clock that morning.

Other then the fight, the several more that would inevitably happen before the day ended, and the loud whining, it had been a pretty good day. So far nobody had bothered me, and I was planning on grabbing a mission as soon as Natsu and Nab stopped hogging the job board.

Of course, my day _would _be ruined at that very moment.

The front doors opened dramatically and a slim hooded figure stood in the doorway, creating a silhouette. A large grey, birdlike creature perched on the person's shoulder.

My heart sank as I recognized the bird creature, along with the strange human-but-not scent of the person accompanying it.

"Well, barzul..." I muttered to myself. "There goes the chance of having even a _slightly _quiet day..." Despite this, I couldn't help the slight smirk of anticipation that crossed my face.

_/This will be interesting./_

* * *

Lucy's P.o.V.

As I looked at the figure ominously posed in the doorway with curiosity, I noticed a large shawl-cape?-thing covering his left shoulder all the way down to his hip. I decided to examine the bird until I could see the person better. It was a single shade of dark grey all over, with three large armor-looking plates covering the front of its stomach and neck. A long trail of spiky feathers trailed behind it and similar feathers spiked off of its head in an elegant yet deadly looking crest.

I heard sniffing, and saw Natsu smelling the air repeatedly with a look of confusion. I took a quick look at the only other person in the room with a nose as strong as Natsu's, Laxus was on a mission, and saw Gajeel slouched down in his corner bench with a dark scowl. Did he know this guy?

"May we help you?" From my seat at the bar I could hear Mirajane perfectly clear as she walked up to him and smiled. The fact that the entire guild was turned towards the door and listening in perfect silence probably helped too.

"Actually, yeah." I blinked as the voice turned out to be female, light and cheerful. The person pulled back her hood to reveal a young teenager, probably only fifteen at the most. "I'm looking for a friend of mine, and I'd heard that he'd joined this guild." She smiled and waved to everybody, blindingly white teeth and slightly sharp canines flashing. Her ice white hair with slight blue highlights was done up in an extremely short ponytail, almost a bun, with a single lock framing her dark blue eyes.

A few of the younger male members waved back dazedly, and you could practically see the hearts in their eyes. The girl giggled slightly and shook her head at them.

"Well who is he? If he's not anywhere around here he might be on a mission, and we can tell you where he's at." Mira said slightly unfocused, her matchmaking mode automatically kicking in as a good portion of the male population in the guild drooled.

The girl never answered, instead scanning the room for the person she was looking for with a hand set to her forehead in a cheesy pose. Her eyes took in the whole room, sweeping past Gajeel but then shooting straight back at him. She smiled and waved wildly, seeming to ignore the loud growl he produced. "Gajeel-kun!" Several people's jaws dropped, nobody but Juvia had ever called him kun, as she practically flounced over to where he sat.

"Do you know that girl?" I whispered to Juvia, who was conveniently placed in the barstool right next to me.

"Juvia does not recognize her." She whispered back. I frowned, Juvia was the person who knew Gajeel the most. If she didn't know this person, who seemed to know him very well, then something was up.

"Mia, what do you want?" Gajeel growled, ignoring how several people in the guild glared at him for being so rude to someone who seemed so nice. He definitely didn't like her very much, and it wasn't exactly hard to find out why. Their personalities appeared to be the exact opposite of each other.

"Well, I'd _love _to tell you, but we've got a few not-so-unnoticeable eavesdroppers here." She answered cheekily, pointing her thumb backwards at everyone else before setting it sassily on her hip.

In complete sync everyone turned around in their seats and continued their previous conversations in hushed whispers, every once and a while failing to sneak a glance at the two people. The girl-Mia?-sat down on one of the benches across from him and started talking. She sat really weirdly though. Instead of just sitting on her butt, she curled her legs up next to her on the bench so that she basically sat on the side of her hip. Despite the odd position, she made it look graceful and it seemed to fit her for some weird reason.

While we had been able to hear her before, now the guild was far too noisy for us to hear that far across the room. So we turned to our secret weapon.

"Hey Natsu, what are they saying?" Gray asked. Natsu frowned in concentration, his ears twitching slightly in a kind of cute way.

As the two talked the strange bird hopped, literally _hopped_ like a frog, from the girl's shoulder to Gajeel's. He didn't seem to really notice, just reached up and absentmindedly scratched the top of its head as it leaned into the contact. Natsu's look of concentration turned into confusion.

"Well?" I nudged him slightly. "What are they saying?"

"I... I don't understand them." He said blushing in embarrassment.

"What do you mean 'you don't understand them', they're speaking English right?" Gray's words were sarcastic, but they made Natsu blush harder.

"Actually, no they're not!" He scratched the back of his head.

Our jaws all dropped as we all looked at the Iron Dragon Slayer in astonishment. While the girl seemed smart enough, if a bit of a goofball, to speak another language, Gajeel had been raised by a dragon. He'd never even been to school before, how had he learned a different language?!

"Juvia wonders..." Juvia muttered, staring at her lap. We all stared at her and she looked up at us. "When Juvia first met Gajeel-kun, he was already a member of Phantom Lord. But he once said something that made it sound like he didn't always live in Fiore. Juvia wonders if that's why he speaks this other language, and maybe this girl as well."

"Did you ever know he could?" I asked her. "Speak another language, I mean."

She shook her head. "Juvia knows Gajeel-kun best, but she still doesn't know very much about him."

We all looked back at Gajeel and the girl. He was frowning and seemed bothered by something she'd said. He stood up, motioning for her to follow him.

They left the guild, and as soon as the doors closed everyone started talking about the odd girl, wondering who she was and how she knew Gajeel.

Mirajane came over to us with a smile. "Isn't she just a cutie?" We all just stared at her.

"Did _you _know her Mira-chan?" Juvia asked her with a curious tilt of her head.

"Oh no, but she seems so nice! I hope she comes back so we can properly meet her!" We all sweatdropped at Mira's typical friendly attitude.

"Aren't you just a _little _curious about who she is and how she knows Gajeel?" Gray said with confusion.

"Of course! But she seems so kind, I'm actually kind of worried for her. Gajeel didn't really seem to like her..." We all gulped at what she was implying. Gajeel was known for his bad temper and not getting along with others. The girl seemed like her attitude would rub him the wrong way in a _very _short amount of time, and who knows what Gajeel would do if his temper snapped?

"I doubt that we need to be worried." Master Makarov spoke up from his seat on the bar. "She seems really young and I sensed no magical energy from her, but did you notice? That bird creature was nearly half her size, and yet she showed no visible sign of strain from carrying it." We all blinked as we realized it was true. When the bird had jumped to Gajeel's shoulder, he had tensed slightly to hold it up, but the girl had been completely relaxed.

"Oh yeah!" Natsu said excitedly as he realized something else. "Her feet didn't make _any _noise _at all _when she walked either!"

"She didn't seem scared or intimidated too." I added in.

"She didn't smell all human." Natsu said almost offhandedly. Even Master Makarov stared at him for that one. "What?"

"What do you mean, 'didn't smell all human'?" Master asked.

"I meant, she smelled human, but not!" We stared blankly at him, we seemed to be doing a lot of staring today. "What? That's the only way I can think of to explain it!" He whined sullenly.

"She was evaluating us." We all turned to look at Erza, who was the only person capable of pulling off a successful serious expression while eating strawberry cream cake. She looked at Master Makarov as she continued. "When she was scanning the guild, she wasn't just looking at us. She was examining us, putting faces to names and reputations, looking for and locating strong points, weak points, and potential threats. I only just barely realized it when she glanced over me, and her evaluation of the entire guild only took a few seconds."

We all looked at the guild doors. How could anyone do such a thorough evaluation in the span of a couple seconds? It was impossible to do it that fast for as many people that were in the guild, even if it was someone as skilled as Erza!

"Well, next time we see her or Gajeel we can find a little more about what's going on. For now, they obviously wanted a little privacy." Master said, finishing his words with a gulp of beer out of his mug.

"Maybe they liiiiiiiiiiiiike each other!" Happy called out with a grin. We all sweatdropped as Mira's eyes turned into hearts and she began to babble on about 'opposites attract' and 'secret love'.

Whoever the mystery girl was, she was sure interesting. Even BEFORE we'd met her.

* * *

**First chapter done! Whew! So, what do you guys think of my OC? She's a doozy alright. XD In case anyone was wondering, the point in time that this is in is right after the Nirvana incident, because that's as far as I've gotten in reading the manga. X3**

**Please read and review, and remember what I said! First person to let me know what OTP stands for get to have a little hint of the two future pairings I've planned out, and gets to decide what another future pairing will be!**

**~RpM**


	2. It Was Just a Little Warning

**Old Friendships**

**Chapter Two**

**"It Was Just a Little Warning..."**

**Hi! Second chapter, hope you all are enjoying it so far! I have something I want to say, but I'll put it on the bottom so you guys can skip right to the story. Thank you anonymous guest for being my only reviewer. :')**

* * *

The young girl followed me soundlessly as I led her to the lakeshore. There, we could talk without any issues of people trying to listen in or unneeded interruptions. I also remembered her odd addiction to water, or any liquid for that matter.

Sure enough, she squealed and gazed out longingly over the gently rippling water. "Something's wrong when you start to have swimming withdrawals," She said with a laugh.

I snorted, the Eldruin we were speaking giving me a strong sense of nostalgia. "Yeah, I can still remember a certain three year old breaking through two solid feet of ice on Lool Lake just so she could 'check on her fish'."

"Hey, you gotta admit. The way I did it was pretty ingenious." She giggled and grinned. She slowly turned towards me with a questioning look on her face. An eyebrow was lifted and her head was tilted too. She lifted her right arm slightly, and I huffed. Knowing what she was silently asking I opened my arms in invitation.

I was knocked over as I experienced the full strength of an Adurna style glomp. Grunting as I hit the ground and had all the air pushed out of me, I managed to wheeze out something that could pass as a laugh and hugged her back. "Nice to see you again too Mia..." I coughed out with an airy chuckle. The large bird creature sitting over on the ground, a few feet away where it had wisely fluttered over to before it got included in the tackle, snickered to itself. "Oh don't even start, Beckaw." I growled at it.

"If it weren't for the fact that you're already spoken for, Gajeel," The bird creature began with its beak gaped slightly in the only way it could smile, its dark and deep voice seemed to roll out of its beak like thick molasses. "I'd say you two would make a cute couple."

Mia frowned at the bird creature. "Beckaw, Gajeel is practically my brother, NOT a possible boyfriend." She snorted as she let go of me and flipped up to stand her feet. "As if I'd ever date anyone anyway, no one could ever keep up."

I rolled my eyes at her as I stood up myself. "Do you really expect anyone to be able to?" She laughed again and shrugged.

"Now, can we get onto the reason why we came all this way?" Beckaw said with a clack of its beak.

"Oh yeah! That's right.." Mia walked to the edge of the lake and let the water wash over her sandals with a sigh. "It's not safe in Eldru anymore. A good three fourths of synergies created are the dark and twisted ones, and they keep getting more and more powerful."

"That's not the worst of it, darker synergies are getting even more violent. For Sluesssss' sake! I saw one of those black, unintelligent excuses for a synergy _bite their own COLLECTIVE!_" Beckaw snarled out, its frightening long and sharp talons making short work of the riverbank soil.

Mia simply nodded, her face grave. I found myself not recognizing her without her usual goofy grin. "What we're doing right now is gathering all the Expatriate synergies out there who aren't fighters, and soon they'll be on their way here with the whole family, Dirk, and a new Collective who's joined us. Me and Beckaw came first to work out where you were and if you could help us out with someplace to stay...?" I nodded as she trailed off with a questioning glance.

Family was family, even if it'd be a hassle I would never leave them hanging like that. She continued with a grateful smile. "Right now it's the only thing we can do. You know, other than waging all out war with the entire country. Despite our certain... _advantages_, we'd rather NOT get in any more trouble with humanity then we're already in." Seemingly out of nowhere she smirked. "You do realize this guy is painfully loud, extremely clumsy, and ridiculously stupid, right?" She giggled.

"Yeah. I'm honestly trying to figure out how the heck he's never gotten caught on stealth jobs before." I replied, shaking my head exasperatedly. "You want me to scare him off?"

"Nah, I got this one." Her right arm blurred for the briefest moment, and there was a thunk of metal embedding itself in wood followed by a yelp of surprise.

We listened as the person who had been listening in on us from the tree line scrambled noisily away to safety.

"Idiot. Even being unaware of my own advanced senses he should have known _you_ could smell him, and _hear_ him for sure. Geez, if my mom were here she'd have chased him down and dragged him back here just to lecture him on how you should either know how to be sneaky, or just give up and go home." She shook her head at Jet's lack of stealth and I shivered at the thought of _her_ ever meeting Fairy Tail.

It was insane enough already!

"Now, what was it you were saying about Dirk?" I asked, unable to hold back my grin as she smiled brightly and began chattering about all that had happened in the three months since I'd last seen her.

* * *

No Specific P.o.V.

Jet burst through the guild doors with a pale face. He numbly sat down and ordered a strong drink from Mira. As she went to get it for him we all stared at him.

"You followed them didn't you." Gray deadpanned.

Jet just nodded and choked down his beer. Once some more color had returned to his cheeks, he began to tell us what had occurred.

"I had followed them to the lake, hiding in the trees. That girl seemed to love the view of the lake. Then... then she actually _glomped_ him," Our eyes widened in surprise but before anyone could say anything he rushed to the next part. "And he hugged her back!" Natsu and Lucy fell out of their chairs while Gray's eyes twitched and Juvia and Erza's jaws dropped. Master Makarov just sat there quietly listening. "I know! I was just as shocked as you guys... And then the bird talked." His voice cracked slightly and he took a big drink of his beer, nodding his head in thanks when Mira sympathetically set a second in front of him.

"It talked? Are you sure?" Happy asked curiously. Being an exceed, pretty much a blue talking cat, meant that he always loved meeting other nonhuman creatures that could talk too.

"Yes, it talked." Jet said firmly, sounding more as if he was trying to convince himself. "It was in whatever weird language they were speaking, but it definitely talked. After that they got down to business and were talking about something real serious."

"How do you know?" Erza asked him.

"If their tones and faces weren't enough, then the bird sinking its claws into the ground and snarling was a good clue." Erza frowned slightly at his blank face as a thought came to her.

"What happened that panicked you so badly? That's all very strange, but none of it deserves the reaction you've been having." She said, pushing him to continue.

"Well, for some reason... the girl suddenly _smiled_ right in the middle of the conversation. She seemed like she was amused by something... Gajeel asked her something and from the look of it she said no." He started to shake slightly and closed his eyes. "I... I saw her arm, it... it _blurred_ for the tiniest second, and then..." He whispered out the next words. "Then the next thing I knew a _knife_ had buried itself in the tree I was peeking around... _only a centimeter away from my face..._" Levy, who had come to help her teammate after seeing his frightened condition, gasped and covered her mouth in shock.

The rest of us just stared in shock as Jet gulped his beer down. Jet was the fastest, his magic was speed magic after all, so for something to be going too fast for _him_ to see? It meant that the girl was incredibly, no, _impossibly_ fast.

"So..." Lucy mumbled. "She uses speed magic?"

"No." Jet shook his head. "I didn't feel any magic from her."

"We will leave this girl alone unless she comes to us." Everyone turned to Master Makarov as he chose to speak up.

"But Gramps, that girl attacked Jet!" Natsu started protesting before being silenced by a glare from Erza.

"He was not attacked. From what Jet has told us, it appears that she knew he was there listening. It was just a warning meant to scare him away." She turned her glare to all of us. "And you will _all _follow orders and leave her alone." We all trembled and nodded vigorously, not wanting to face her infamous wrath.

A few minutes later found the guild fighting yet again, with people generally distracted from thoughts of the weird girl.

Makarov, however, was not one of them. As guild members fought around him he couldn't help but think of who the girl reminded him of. A woman he had met a real long time ago, with the same eyes and the proud, confident way they both held themselves.

_/Mavis, please don't let THAT woman come to Fairy Tail again!/ _He thought and shivered._ /I'd like to keep our guild in ONE piece thank you very much!/ _He sweatdropped as a wall cracked slightly when Elfman was thrown into it.

"As long as it'll hold up with how wild these brats are anyway..." He groaned to himself.

* * *

Gajeel's P.o.V.

"Mielany Adurna you are NOT sleeping on the roof!" I growled to her as she made to go outside.

"What? Me? Sleep on the roof?" She asked with obviously faked innocence and a smirk.

"Look, I _know _you Mia. If you go to sleep on the roof you're not going to be doing any sleeping. You're too paranoid to sleep without someone you trust nearby, and having a ceiling between us means you're going to be staring at the sky all night." I growled harshly at her, not to be rude. I did it because she could be one of the most stubborn people sometimes, and it was the only way to get it across to her that I was serious.

She sighed and shook her head. "Dude... I love how you're being all 'overprotective big brother' and all, but I can take care of myself. Besides, with all the energy I've got I can go without sleep for _weeks_ if I have to." She smirked proudly.

"But you _don't _have to," I argued with a glare as I crossed my arms. She set her right hand on her hip and glared right back. We had a glaring match, and neither of us was going to back down. But I had the advantage here.

Remembering the advice of the only other people I knew who had eyes as red as mine were, I tilted my head down so that a slight shadow was cast over them. I narrowed my eyes slowly, millimeter by millimeter, until I knew from experience that only the red, slightly glowing parts of my eyes were showing. I tightened the muscles in my face and set my jaw. _/Now if I only knew how to burst into flames and I'd be all set.../_ I thought to myself with an inner smirk.

Suddenly, Mia burst into laughter and doubled over to hold onto her stomach.

"Oh geez, dude! Did Kaine give you glaring lessons or something?!" She giggled and snorted as I rolled my eyes at the failure of my efforts. "Okay okay, I won't sleep on the roof. But ONLY because of how much you looked like a Brisingr right now." She shook her head as she got control over her laughter. "But if you think for one _second _I'm sleeping in a bed-"

"Of course not!" I snorted at her. "_I _can still barely stand it, no way I'd expect you to."

For us, beds were an unnecessary luxury. Before I'd come to Fiore we didn't exactly live anywhere near civilization, and so didn't have beds. I had a little shelf-like hollow in the wall of my cave that I'd slept on with a thin blanket in winter, my cave being just one small section of an immense underground cave system. My cave was filled with metal scraps thrown all around, and my house now was just the same.

Mia rarely slept in her own cave, it became something of a game for her brothers and I to look and see where she had spent the night. The spots we often found her in varied from a tree branch outside, curled up next to her parents, wrapped around the base of a stalagmite or stalactite, once we'd even found her sleeping on top of Metalicana! Though it had been _very_ funny when he'd woken up and knocked her off with a huff.

Some of the places all of us ended up sleeping would probably be uncomfortable, or downright physically impossible, to some, but we'd grown up that way and we were used to it.

Beds? I could never sleep in beds, they were just too soft, too comfortable, they always gave me this feeling like I wasn't paying enough attention. Growing up in a house, or cave if you want to get literal, full of highly trained warriors, not to mention a dragon, who never hesitated to test if you were on your guard? The feeling of someone about to grab me and flip me onto my back kept me from even hoping of getting a good night's rest.

I didn't even have a real bed in my house, just a rusty futon that was falling apart. I usually just slept on the floor or the couch.

Yes, I did happen to have a couch. Whoever had owned the ramshackle little house before me hadn't wanted it and left it. Probably because it was hard as a rock. For me, that was perfect.

I decided to sleep on my, in my opinion, perfect couch that night. Right before falling asleep I looked up and saw a small sandaled foot hanging over the edge of one of the three thick rafters of my living room.

"Figures..." I muttered as I dozed off.

* * *

**Okay, first of all: If you noticed, Adurna and Brisingr are words in the Ancient Language that mean Water and Fire in that order. You'll learn about why eventually. Second: Kaine is pronounced differently then it looks, Kai-yee-nuh, or Kaiyina if that helps.**

**So, what do you guys think? I've noticed that I haven't really gotten many views and all with this story... For the few of you that DO look at it, could you tell me what's wrong? Is the plot progressing too slow? Is the summary too boring? I want to know! Any info I can get I can use to make this story even better for everyone! :)**

**Also, my challenge last chapter was for someone to tell me what OTP stood for. As a prize, I would give them a clue about one or both of my two possible pairings for the future and they got to suggest a pairing that I might use further on. Sadly, the guest reviewer was the one who had answered. :( I can't tell them the clues, and they didn't say which pairing they wanted. To you, guest, if you're reading this please create a profile or something so I can pm you. Otherwise the challenge still stands, except now I'm paranoid that someone's just going to go and copy what the guest reviewer put. However, if the guest pms (Oh lol X3) me or reviews again so I can pm them before anyone else gets it I will do that. :)**

**Read and Review please!**

**~RpM**


	3. Sister!

**Old Friendships**

**Chapter Three**

**"Sister?! Oh, Not Really? Um, Ok Then..."**

**Hey guys! Here is Chapter Three, all tied up in a nice little bow!**

**Thank you ****Lucy Queen of the Stars and DudeLooksLikeA(guest) for reviewing last chapter!**

**I own nothing! But I wanted to ask Natsu and the other Dragonslayers to help me demand that I be given the rights to Fairy Tail... But then they told me they didn't want to risk being under my complete control. :'( I'm not that bad am I?**

* * *

Lucy's P.o.V.

The next morning I hurried to the guild, hoping to meet the girl. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea, most mornings hardly anyone showed up until noon but almost everyone was there!

I walked in, said 'Hi' to everyone, and sat down at the bar next to Natsu and Happy. "Can I have a strawberry milkshake?" I asked Mira and soon I was sipping on sweet, delicious goodness. As I drank I chatted with several others about who the girl might be. Some guild members had some REALLY weird theories...

Just as some people were starting to think that they would never show up, the front doors opened(apparently the girl liked to be dramatic) and Gajeel stalked in with the girl right behind him. The large bird sat on Gajeel's shoulder, sharp eyes glaring at everything.

"Since I know you guys aren't gonna leave me alone until I introduce her, this is Mielany Adurna." He said loudly without even looking around. Everyone was slightly embarrassed at the annoyance in his tone, but our curiosity was too great for it to really bother us.

The girl smiled and waved cheerfully, a stark contrast to Gajeel's grumpiness. "You can all just call me Mia!" She said.

"So, Mia," Mira said as Gajeel rolled his eyes at her suggestive tone. "How do you know Gajeel?"

"Oh, Gajeel's my brother!"

"WHAT?!" Half of the guild shouted and Gajeel facepalmed. Natsu immediately perked up at the idea of another Dragonslayer.

"She's your sister? I'm guessing you're the older one?" The suggestive tone was completely gone from Mira's voice as she smiled at Gajeel.

"No, she ain't my _real_ sister. But yeah, we do consider ourselves brother and sister. And she's only thirteen so of course I'm older." Some people were surprised to hear that Mia was only thirteen, while most, including myself, were shocked at how Gajeel seemed fine with calling her his sister. So far there had been no evidence that the two even LIKED each other, besides when Jet spied on them, and many people were finding it hard to believe.

"Really?" Mira turned back to Mia.

"Yup! We're pretty close, but you can't really tell with Mr. Grumpy over here," She teased him and elbowed his side with a smirk. He just rolled his eyes again before walking off to his usual seat in the corner of the guild. He seemed to mumble something to the bird as he went.

The bird hopped off his shoulder and fluttered over to the bar, Mia skipping up and sitting down on a barstool next to it. Again she sat in that weird way as the day before, legs tucked next to her. How she even managed such a position on a barstool was beyond me. She scratched the bird underneath its chin, before giving the rest of the guild a pointed look.

Everyone stopped staring and turned around, though it was painfully obvious that they were still listening in. She rolled her eyes and smirked but accepted it.

"Who's this little fella?" Grey asked as he reached out to pet the bird himself. A brief smirk crossed her face yet again for a second right as the bird snapped at his hand.

"This 'little fella' doesn't appreciate being talked to like some dumb animal!" The bird hissed at him.

"Um, sorry?" Grey gave it a bewildered look. Clearly he didn't expect Jet's story of the bird talking to be real.

The bird 'hmphed' and scooted closer to Mia, glaring at everyone. She just laughed.

"This is Beckaw, its a Synergy." She told us.

"What's a synergy?" I asked her, finally getting a word in. After some of the mystifying stories some members had come up with about her it was strangely gratifying to be able to talk to her myself.

She frowned as she thought. The small group of people at the bar, mainly just Team Natsu and Mira, waited and waited as she looked apprehensive about saying anything. Finally Gajeel shouted something at her in the other language from his spot and she brightened up.

Now, a look of comedic contemplation came over her as she somehow produced a pipe and pretended to puff on it. I had to stifle my laughter as she narrowed her eyes in thought.

"Would you like the long version, or the short version? The long one would take hours and hours and hours and hours and etcetera, not to mention we would keep getting sidetracked as I tried to explain it all to you and the fact that there is very much that I probably couldn't tell you or you wouldn't understand. Of course, the short one is VERY abbreviated and you wouldn't learn nearly as much as you could." She spoke incredibly fast, I barely even understood her!

"Um... short.. version?"

"Well then," She lost all traces of humor again as she straightened. "If you looked up the word synergy in a dictionary you would read: 'The interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements'. That pretty much sums up what a synergy is. In the country I come from, oh don't give me that look you guys don't seem stupid, we all know that you guys've figured at least THAT out by now, the people can't directly use magic. Instead, they create synergies. They are made from tiny, individual pieces of a soul, and they themselves are able to use magic. The owner of a synergy is the one who's soul the synergy came from. They are called Collectives, and they usually have more than two or three synergies. The basics of it is: A synergy and it's magic combined with its Collective is greater than the synergy alone, the Collective alone, or the Collective not having used a piece of its soul for the formation in the first place."

It took more than a few minutes for all that to sink in. It was strange, she had spoken so fast that we couldn't understand her as she spoke it, but once she was finished our brains seemed to catch up with her words. Once everyone finally did understand it, Natsu looked at Beckaw curiously.

"So he's your synergy?"

"ITs!" The bird, er, synergy, snarled at him. Mia gave Beckaw a calming pat.

"Beckaw is an Expatriate synergy, meaning that its Collective has died. Expatriate synergies have genders like any synergy, but they are considered genderless and instead of calling one he or she you have to call them 'it'." She nodded seriously

"Oh, sorry..." Natsu shrunk back from the glare Beckaw was giving him. I didn't really get it. If they HAD genders, why were they considered genderless? It didn't make any sense!

"You take care of Beckaw, right? So what does that make you?" Mira asked.

"Well, someone who cares for Expatriate synergies is called a Quisling. But, I'm not Beckaw's. Gajeel is."

There was silence for a moment. "You know, that really makes sense." I said. I was about to say more, but she suddenly giggled.

"Oh geez, you guys got mine but I never got _your_ names!" She smiled.

"Wow, I can't believe I forgot!" In all honesty I was just too absorbed in listening to her. "I'm Lucy Heartfilia!" After that, somehow we were dragged around the guild in a whirlwind of names and introductions. We went from table to table and she smiled and laughed and had fun with _everyone_ at one point or another.

She was a great person to be around, always doing something silly to make people laugh. She was polite and nice, not taking anything with less than a smile. It was hard to see her as being close to Gajeel, as he was usually closed off and reserved, but once she started going she managed to drag Gajeel into it and the guild saw a side of him that nobody, except maybe Juvia or Levy, knew was there.

He was still rough and sarcastic, but she made him laugh and he didn't bother to hide his emotions around her. He spoke a lot more, and even made us laugh several times with how open and plain _fun_ he was being. But no matter what he stayed around her, as if she was his little comfort zone that had to be right there with him to open him up. It was obvious now just how close the two were, neither seemed to like being in physical contact with others but they freely elbowed each other and gave one another noogies. They laughed and smiled at certain things that no one else found quite as funny, and it was easy to see that the two shared many inside jokes. But then again, back to Mia.

She always spoke quickly, as if unintentionally in a hurry, and when she got to talking it was hard to understand her, just like before. Something else I noticed about her was that no matter what she was always moving. Whether she was skipping across the room, gesturing wildly while talking, or simply standing still she was always twitching. It wasn't like a full blown muscle spasm, just small twitches here and there.

I wasn't sure what to make of it but I was quickly distracted by her or others whenever I went to ask her something. She was just so... _energetic_, it seemed like she never stopped!

"Mia, what kind of magic do you have?!" Natsu asked excitedly. I could practically hear him chanting '_Dragonslayer Dragonslayer Dragonslayer,'_ in his mind.

She paused. She had a thoughtful look that quickly changed to a wild grin.

"Want to see an example?" She asked as she giggled for whatever reason.

"Yes!" Natsu and Happy cheered.

"I shall need a volunteer!" She proclaimed dramatically in a deep voice.

"Uh, I guess I'll give it a try," I said nervously as I got up from my seat.

"Nah, you can stay sitting," She chirped as she walked over to me. She lifted her fingers up so that her pointer, middle, and ring fingers were pointing at me as the other fingers were closed into a slight fist.

"Will it hurt?" I asked as I sat back down and fidgeted.

"Just a little, it'll feel about the same as an ant bite. Don't worry though, it'll disappear in a few seconds." She took a deep breath and lifted her hand to my neck. "Unarchived Magic: Water Survival!"

Her fingers suddenly ran lengthwise across my throat, glowing slightly. I flinched as it stung a little, but true to her word it faded quickly. I looked around to see everyone staring at me in shock. Or, more specifically, my neck.

"What?" I jumped in surprise at the strange sensation of the skin on my neck moving when I spoke.

"Lu-chan... you have..." Juvia struggled to get the words out.

"Gills!" Mia happily exclaimed and, similarly to the pipe, pulled out a small hand mirror out of nowhere for me to look.

At first I didn't see anything, but when I took a breath I saw my skin shift a little. I took as deep a breath as I could and watched as three gills running across the front of my neck flared outwards.

"That's... amazing.." I said in awe, feeling them with my hand. "Wait, they aren't permanent right?!"

"Of course not!" She snickered. "I use it on myself all the time, it'll go away in about half an hour."

"So... is that all you can do?" Natsu frowned, clearly wondering how she had done what she did to Jet (who had panicked at seeing her and nearly fainted when she'd been introduced to him) the day before and upset that she didn't turn out to be a Dragonslayer.

"Yup. Well, that's the only _magic _I can do." She nodded and I got the feeling she wouldn't elaborate on her words.

"I noticed that you didn't give off any magical energy with your spell." Master Makarov said. (When did_ he_ get here?)

"Well that's easy to explain. You can only use Unarchived Magics if they've been passed down to you through blood. But not even the people who _use_ it know everything about it. One of its little quirks is that it doesn't give off magical energy, rather, keeping it within the spell and concealing it."

"That must come in handy!" Levy said kindly. While being a little nervous around her at first she had quickly warmed up to her.

"Yeah," Mia said.

"Mia, I'd like to offer a spot in Fairy Tail to you," Jaws dropped as anyone who heard Master Makarov stared at him.

"Wait, what?! Why?" None were more surprised than Mia as she stared at him with wide eyes and confusion showing.

"Well, you're a very nice person. You're kind, fun, value family more than other things, and all my brats seem to like you. That's the kind of person I like to have in my guild, and I figured I might as well ask you since you seem to like my brats just as much back." He smiled at her.

She thought for a moment, forehead creased. Beckaw fluttered over to her shoulder and nudged her ear with its beak in a comforting gesture.

"Come on Mia, there's no harm in it!" Gajeel spoke up. He then said something in the other language and her eyes widened. She looked around at the guild hall, which was perfectly silent as we waited for her answer, with a shocked expression. A bright smile worked its way onto her face.

"Of _course!_"

There was a loud cheer from around the hall. Just like Master Makarov had said, even though they had only known her for a few hours everyone had already grown attached to her bubbly personality.

A party was immediately in swing to celebrate and welcome the new member and Mira came over from behind the bar with the guild's stamp.

"Where would you like your guild mark and what color?" She smiled brightly. Mia thought for a moment before turning her left shoulder to Mira and lifting the rose colored shawl up.

"In light blue next to the rune." Mira didn't move and neither did anyone else who saw.

"I-I'm sorry," Mira stuttered as she realized she'd been staring. "May I ask how?"

"I was born with a birth defect," Mia shrugged nonchalantly. "If my arm hadn't been amputated it would've spread and I'd've died. I get along fine without it." Her arm was missing two inches below her shoulder, leaving a a short stub. On it was a complex looking rune. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Fried was quickly copying the rune down onto a napkin.

"What's the rune for?" I asked curiously.

She shrugged again, it was really weird how the stub shifted with the movement. "Nothing really, just something all my family has."

Mira then pressed the stamp onto her shoulder next to the rune. There was the normal magical sparkle and pop and then Mia turned to show off her new guild mark to everyone with a smile. Everyone cheered again and the party continued.

A short while later I was staring at my second milkshake of the day. Mia was talking to Gajeel again, making everyone stare at them because he was talking and laughing with her.

"What's wrong Lucy?" Mira asked and I realized I'd been frowning.

"Oh, nothing. I just feel kind of odd about the fact that her arm was missing and nobody even noticed!" I sighed and stirred my milkshake with the straw.

"Well that was probably the point," Mira said, leaning against the bar. "She isn't effected at all by it, and she was pretty quick to tell us that."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. She must not like people making a big deal about it."

"Exactly!"

"AAH!" Both Mira and I shrieked and jumped as Mielany showed up out of nowhere. I fell of my seat and hit my milkshake with my arm as I flailed. It flew forwards and ended up hitting Mira.

"Oh my gosh, I'm _SO_ sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you!" She babbled on and one, spouting apologies with a terrified expression on her face.

"It's okay, nothing to worry about." Mira said comfortingly as she grabbed a rag and started trying to clean herself off. I hauled myself to my with a laugh.

"It's fine Mia, you didn't mean to so no harm done! I didn't really plan on finishing that milkshake anyways."

"Oh," She blinked and stared at us with a bewildered look.

She did insist on helping Mira clean up, and still apologized at least ten times to each of us before Gajeel managed to drag her away with an exasperated look.

It was strange really, she had seemed so scared of our reactions. Almost like she expected us to be angry at her.

I pushed the thoughts out of my head, telling myself I would ask her about it later. But for the rest of the day, and night because of the party, every time I tried asking her questions we would get interrupted. It was easy to pass off as simple coincidences, but after a while it was obvious that she was avoiding answering questions as much as she could.

I didn't really mind, it was her own past after all. I would simply wait until she was comfortable enough to tell it to the guild.

* * *

**Me: Yay! Lots of info on Mia this chapter! Looking back on her I get the dangerous feeling of Mary Sue coming on... I'll try to keep it from getting to that but the truth is that her entire family-**

**Mielany: Say ONE word about my family and you're going to end up tied to a rock in the bottom of a lake WITHOUT my gills.**

**Me: *pouts* Sorry guys, I don't want to have to be rescued. Her family takes debts very seriously and I can think of a few of them who'll be very interested in making me repay it. Please Read and Review to tell me what you think of her! **

**Mielany: Please? *puppy dog eyes* I want to know that people like me! **

**Me: IF people like you, you mean. **

**Mielany: No, I meant what I said.**

**Me: *facepalm* We're going to have to work on your people skills...**


End file.
